Blog about Greyhound Friends

Learn more about the issues that animal rescue law enforcement and state agencies uncovered about the greyhound adoption group Greyhound Friends in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Greyhound Friends is closed but is trying to obtain a new kennel license, despite recent reports that they neglected sick and injured dogs.

Is Greyhound Friends supporting greyhound racing?

In the past, many of us assumed that Greyhound Friends was opposed to greyhound racing. Recently we did some research into this and were surprised by what we found.

In one article, Greyhound Friends founder Louise Coleman seemed to be in favor of racing, lamenting, “If greyhound racing goes [away] all over the country, who is going to breed greyhounds?"

Greyhound Friends publicly refers to itself as "racing neutral". The organization maintained that this stance allowed them to get dogs when they finished at the track. However, we learned that Greyhound Friends received a large portion of its dogs from a greyhound racing breeder.

Former staff members explained that dogs are bred at a facility in Connecticut. The dogs they breed that are deemed to be candidates for racing are trucked to tracks in Florida or other locations, where they race until they are “retired”. The breeder then charged Greyhound Friends to board the dogs, often for weeks or longer, and transport them to Greyhound Friends. According to Greyhound Friends’ most recent annual filing, they paid more than $46,000 to the breeder in a single year.

Reportedly, many of the dogs coming from the breeder arrived at Greyhound Friends with fleas and other parasites. According to one witness, the Greyhound Friends veterinarian asked Coleman to instruct the breeder to have the dogs dewormed and given flea/tick control while they were boarded there, but this advice was not heeded.